


The Library Cafe

by TheCarrot



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: -faceplam- I'm so sorry, AU, Alternate Universe, Café, Cass/Lamia, Eve/Flynn - Freeform, Ezekiel and Lamia are BFF's, Ezekiel is still a thief, Ezekiel wins the cafe from Ray, F/M, Gen, Go Fish, Jake/Ezekiel - Freeform, Judson and Charlene are bad influences, Lamia is a hitwoman, M/M, The Library, The Library Cafe, but a nice thief, coffeeshop!au, jazekiel - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-04-28 22:56:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14459640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCarrot/pseuds/TheCarrot
Summary: The coffeeshop AU no one asked for.In which, Ezekiel 'wins' The Library Cafe from Ray in a game of drunken Go Fish. Only to kind of fall for the stupidly attractive southern guy who just so happens to make his tea perfectly.Also, Jenkins apple fritters are worth flying to Portland for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ....
> 
> -faceplam-
> 
> It's defiantly not 3:12am...
> 
> Please enjoy? I have a lot done to this so I'm oping it's not too long between updates.... haha, jk, I'm a terrible updater.

Ezekiel blinks the fog out of his eyes as he stands in the doorway of the mess that is his kitchen. His sweatpants hang low on his hips and the sweater he’s pulled on as he crawled out of bed smells like the weird lavender stuff Lamia keeps throwing in his laundry.

He groans when he spots the pizza boxes that lay scattered across the counter while empty chicken wing containers are stacked precariously by a disgusting amount of empty taco wrappings near the sink. The Australian frowns at the towering maze of beer cans that wind around the legs of the stools by the counter as he makes his way over to the coffee pot. The glass carafe is already holding two of his favourite tea bags and Ezekiel does a small cheer for the preparedness of his drunk self.

Beside the point more over, this is seriously the last time he’s ever inviting Ray, Lamia and Charlene over. (He really needs to stop lying to himself though…) Ezekiel figures that his kitchens only saving grace is that Judson was busy with Judson things and didn’t show up last night so his house is still mostly intact. 

The thief cracks his neck as the coffee pot gurgles, moments later the hot water finishes dripping into the coffee carafe where his special tea bags are and Ezekiel grabs the big unicorn mug Lamia stole for him a year ago. He hates it, but it holds the largest amount of tea in the array of mismatched mugs he’s amassed over the years so he just suffers through the indignity of the rainbow coloured monstrosity. 

He heads towards the living room, almost tripping over the mini croquet game that Charlene’s left out and Ezekiel curses loudly. 

“Crazy old bird. The hell were you doing with a croquet mallet anyways...” he vaguely recalls her trying to fight Lamia with it but he’s not sure if that was last night or last week. Charlene can get a little rowdy sometimes despite her age; or maybe because of it, Ezekiel thinks. The older woman had worked her entire life for a man that got rid of her the moment he and the company they had built together, didn’t need her anymore; and now she and Judson were seeming to tear a strip off the remainder of their lives. 

Not that he blames them.

Frankly he encourages them more often then not and is happy to pay the bill for whatever they manage to break Even despite how much he’ll complain about it later.

Ezekiel makes it to the living room, fully intending to crash on the couch for the rest of the day and work on his hangover, but he can only sigh when he sees a lump already sprawled out half on the couch and half falling off of it. Ray’s snoring is the worst kind of sound on a good day but couple that with a hangover and lack of sleep from the past few weeks due to a terribly complicated heist and well...

Rays yelp of surprise fills the thief with a great deal of amusement as Ezekiel watches the larger man flail about wildly before crashing into the hardwood floor in a heap. Ezekiel grins evilly as he climbs up to take the warm spot on the couch Ray’s just been shoved off of.

“You are a terrible morning person Mr. Jones.” Ray mutters into the floor as he pulls himself into a upright position so he cab glare at the dark haired man now curling up on his make shift bed. 

Ezekiel shrugs and takes a sip of his tea, smiling a bit behind the rim. “Where’d Charlene bugger off too?”

Ray looks around the room searching for the older woman. “It seems Lamia is gone as well.”

“Her wazizashi is still here...”

Grey eyes follow Ezekiel’s gaze and Ray takes a moment to mourn his friends living room dry wall, because sure enough, Lamia’s short sword is stuck several inches into the wall and seems to be pinning a piece of paper in place. “Are you going to see what it is?” Ray finally asks.

“And lose my spot?” Ezekiel gives the man a flat look and Ray does his best not to laugh at the dark glare next to the bright pink mug.

Unfurling himself from the tangle of blankets the older man gets to his feet with a wobble. “This is the last time I try to match drinks with Judson.” 

“You say that every time.” 

Ray glares at Ezekiel before reaching up to tug the sword out of the wall, only it doesn’t budge. If Lamia was the one to put it in there then Ray figures there’s not a chance that he’ll be able to dislodge it without ruining the entire wall. Instead he leans over so he can read the paper and grins widely after a moment.

“How joyous!” Ray exclaims.

Ezekiel groans at the volume. “Seriously mate, tone it down, you lot might be freaks that don’t get hangovers, but the rest of us mere mortals do.”

Ray shakes his head at his friend and claps his hands together loudly regardless. “It appears that last night you won ownership of my coffee shop in Portland! Congratulations my dearest friend!”

The thief doesn’t move, blinking into his tea as Rays words catch up with him and Ezekiel had to take a few moments to wonder if he’s still asleep. Please dear god, let him still be asleep…“W’at?”

Excitement colours Rays voice as he reads off the paper on the wall. “Last night during our game of Go Fish, we had run out of Skittles, and so as a bet I put down my shop.” The man explains. “You put down your wrist watch...that does not seem fair...however, look, we’ve both signed. And it appears you were victorious!”

Ezekiel is up and off the couch, more awake then any tea or coffee could make him as he rips the paper away from the sword to read.

Sure enough, there, written in Charlene’s neat cursive, are the outlines of stakes and prizes for their final game of Go Fish last night. Both his and Rays signatures are strewn on the bottom in messy writing next to Judson’s, Charlene’s and Lamia’s all as witnesses.

“This is bloody insane!!” Ezekiel shouts as his head pounds at his own volume. “I don’t want your shop Ray!”

“Oh it is a gorgeous place Ezekiel, you will love it!” Ray states completely ignoring the thief’s yelling. “The Library is full of wonderful people and the most delicious snacks you will ever have.” He sets his hands on his stomach and gets a dreamy look on his face. “Galeas’s apple fritters are miraculous.” 

“I don’t even remember signing this!” The thief needs to sit down. And maybe a drink. He definitely needs a drink.

Ray merely points to the collections of empty beer bottles and then to the mass of empty rum and gin bottles.

Ezekiel rolls his eyes, “Nice try, but those are Lam’s and Char’s.” Well, most of them anyways... he vaguely recalls putting a dent into the gin.

Glasney just shrugs and reaches for his leather side bag that sits on the floor next to the couch and pulls out a legal sized envelope that’s got gold lettering on the front in a logo of words ‘The Library Cafe’. “Regardless, I know you will do well with this Ezekiel Jones. The Library is the most enchanting of places.”

“I don’t even have a green card, I can’t run a business here!” Ezekiel cries, staring at Ray in growing horror when it appears that the man is going to stand by the piece of paper written by over tired and overworked drunks. “Plus I already have a full time job remember!”

Ray just smiles guilefully at Ezekiel and tosses the envelope with the deed in it at the Aussies face making him have to scramble to catch it. “Too be honest Ezekiel I won it in a poker game a year ago, you won it from me in Go Fish last night. That’s a legitimate transfer of ownership right there, no green card needed.” He beams. “All is well.”

Card games are so far from a legitimate transfer of anything, Ezekiel thinks as he rubs at his temples. Someday he’s going to remember how he even became tangled up in Ray Glasney. He figures he must have been drunk that day, or concussed... it’s the only thing that would explain them as the friends they are now.

“Well just be glad we weren’t playing UNO or you might have ended up with his van instead.” 

Ezekiel turns at the sound of Lamia’s voice to see the assassin leaning against the doorway into his living room. She looks a little ruffled, like she beat up a dozen guys on the way over and forgot to fix her hair, but she appears mostly sober despite the amount of rum she drank last night. “What’s wrong with UNO?” He gasps at her in mock offence.

“Last time we played UNO Judson and Charlene caught fire to your couch.” Lamia reminds him. 

Ezekiel pouts, he had really liked that couch. “I feel like that’s the rule rather than the exception with those two though, they usually destroy something when they’re around and sometimes it doesn’t even involve playing cards.”

Lamia just rolls her eyes and takes a sip out of her travel mug, Ezekiel bets there’s whiskey in that coffee too... he wishes she’d share because he needs whiskey right the fuck now and does not have the wherewithal to go find some for himself.

Ray giggles and claps Ezekiel on his shoulder as he heads towards the door. “Well I’ll pass along all your contact information to the manager so, Be Well Ezekiel Jones.” He says cheerily, completely ignorant of Ezekiel’s dumbfounded expression as Ray all but flounces out of the living room.

“Ray!”

The older man is gone however, the front door slamming shut as he goes and Ezekiel can only flop down onto the floor and draw his hood over his head. He never should have woken up this morning. 

“Stop laughing Lamia!” He has to snap when the woman has to clutch onto the doorframe to keep from falling over in amusement. 

—

Ezekiel isn’t sure why but he ends up googling how to run a coffee shop after Lamia collects her sword and leaves as well. Only, he quits reading after five minutes. He’s not quiet sure what’s happening to the internet lately but it’s frankly starting to scare him. Ezekiel may be a thief, but at least he knows enough about food safety to not have sex on top of a pastry case. The damned Internet.

The thief frowns as he reads over the resumes Ray’s emailed him for the five employees he now owns. (He doesn’t really own them but he’ll admit it does sound cooler that way.) “Flynn Carsen, Eve Baird, Jacob Stone, Cassandra Cillian, Galeas...Jenkins...seriously dude...medieval much? ”

With a heavy sigh the Aussie hauls his keyboard forward and gets to work. It takes him a few hours but Ezekiel hacks as far into each of them as he can get and he physically balks at what he finds.

Cassandra Cillian, 25, 5.0 GPA, accepted into Harvard, Yale, Eaton, Brown. Emancipation records that follow a slew of doctors visits and X-rays of a tumour Ezekiel wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy. He finds doctor bills and insurance claims and a dizzying debt that would drown most people. He spends hours researching Synesthetes and symptoms of tumours and has to go to the freezer because he needs a shot of something strong. He takes two.

Jacob Stone, 31. Oklahoma born and raised. IQ tested at 190, took the Mensa test but never became a member. Contacted by both Cambridge and Sorbonne, turned them both down. Doctorates in eight different names that only takes Ezekiel moments to link back to Stone himself with how poorly they’re set up. Speaks nine languages, reads up to fourteen. Estranged family and failed family business.

Flynn Carsen, 41, 22 degrees in everything from Egyptology, History, Geography, Ancient Studies etc, etc. Father murdered, overworked mother dead at eleven, foster home to foster home...Ezekiel grimaces at the CPS photos of Flynn after some of those houses. Several prescriptions for anti-depressants, but none look recently filled.

Galeas Jenkins brings up some pretty weird images. He can’t find much on the older man, no birthdate, no living records, no home address. The man is a veritable ghost until he was about 30 years old and then it’s just police record after police record; arrested during a freedom march, assault charges in government buildings. Then silence for the next ten years that follow the destruction of millions of dollars worth of machinery that belonged to a seedy company in England. Ezekiel stops reading Jenkins colourful history when he tries to dig into the arrest at a croquette match.

Eve Baird....Colonel Eve Baird. 39. Nine years with a NATO Counter terrorism task force and then a short stint in the Department of Statistical Anomalies. Military brat. Purple Heart. Honourable Discharge after a WMD incident in Berlin leading to the death of her eight team members and several kilometres of buildings. Eighteen months of rehabilitation. Diagnosed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Ezekiel stares at his screen in shock, his brown eyes reflecting the bright light of the monitor in the darkness of the room. He’s not sure when night had fallen or what time it is but Ezekiel knows he needs time to process this; more ties to anyone, let alone an entire business… to these people… is not something he needs in his life. 

It’s just he knows Ray, and he knows that there isn’t going to be a hope in hell of the man taking his company back now that Ezekiel has any sort of claim to it.

Shutting down his computer gives him a moment to think about his next move. The coffee shop is just that, he realizes; a coffee shop. It’s already been up and running for a few years, it can’t take him doing too much for it to keep going and a change in ownership shouldn’t effect it to badly if Ray is what they had before. 

Nodding to himself Ezekiel grabs the rolled up layouts for the bank in Geneva he’s been eying for the past week and heads for the tea pot. Yeah, he’ll just deal with the place on an as needed basis. 

Perfect.


	2. Chapter 2

Ezekiel gets his first email regarding the The Library Cafe the next day and he frowns down at his phone from his spot on the edge of the roof of the John Hancock building. He tugs on his rappelling line around his waist and opens the email, raising an eyebrow in surprise at the fact that it’s Stone emailing him. Which is odd, he expects Carsen or Baird, seeing as they’re the ones labeled as Manager and Assistant Manager on Ray’s list.

Jacob Stone’s writing is wordy and long and Ezekiel skims through most of it without fully absorbing it all, before suddenly realizing the email is actually addressed to Ray. A look at the CC tells him Ray’s just set up an automated forwarding system for his mail from the Library and Ezekiel’s groan gets lost to the wind as he moves to lean against one of the fan vents before looking back over the email to read it more carefully. 

According to Stone the hot water tank is broken down again and would Ray please do something about it this time because he’s not sure how long this patch job he did is going to hold. 

Ezekiel does not face palm at this... well, maybe he does a little. He knows Rays heart is in a good place, even if his mind is a little shoddy sometimes. More often then not it’s the little things that tend to get away from Ray the most. The thief huffs, staring out across the Boston skyline before glancing back to the email with a sudden realization.

Ray’s not told the cafe workers that Ezekiel’s supposed to be in charge now.

‘…hmm,’ Ezekiel smirks as an idea comes to him. He channels his inner Glasney as he types back a short reply to Stone, and if Ezekiel is oddly proud at how well he writes like his friend, well, at least no one is around to see how sad his life has become.

He finds better cover against the chilly Boston winds and calls the closest plumber to The Library that Google can find; and if Ezekiel grins while he’s giving the plumber Rays credit card number, and yes, he’d like all the warranties and yes if you could have this done yesterday, well... it’s Rays own fault for being bad at Go Fish. 

And for giving Ezekiel the chance to memorize his credit card number. 

Pocketing his phone the thief grins widely, giving his rope one last check before running for the edge of the building and leaping off the side. 

Yup. Good plan.

—

Across the country, Jacob Stone feels his jaw hit the floor when not thirty minutes after closing the email browser on the Library’s sole computer in the office, there’s a scruffy looking handyman at the door with a brand new hot water tank. 

Next to him Cassandra’s eyes are wide in surprise and she clutches her knitted scarf tightly in her hands, whispering under her breath as two more workers climb out fo the white van. “What’s going on?”

Grey eyes meet blue in complete confusion as the three handymen start unloading their vehicle and move to bring boxes into the cafe. There’s no customers around at the moment, the cafe sitting in that after lunch lull on a Tuesday so Jake and Cassandra don’t feel bad about standing around and gawking.

“A-are you folks sure you got the right place?” Jake asks the scruffy looking plumber who he assumed is the lead.

“Library cafe? Eh, s’right place.” One of the other workers with the bushy beard mutters as he looks around and eyes the leaking facet behind the centre bar with a large amount of skepticism.

Cassandra tilts her head in confusion, her red hair is pin straight today and it falls across her shoulders in soft strands. “Who sent you?”

“Fellas name was Glasney... gave us his card and said to do whatever you needed done.” The plumber shrugs. “So... you kids got a list’a stuff you need fixed? Guy said you might.”

Jake and Cassandra look at each other for a moment, an entire conversation happening in an instant before the red headed woman scrambles for the closed sign while Jake heads behind the cash register to grab the clipboard Flynn put there over a year ago. It holds old work orders and the list Eve started, but each of them have added to over time, of things that needed replacing in the store. 

The plumber eyes the paper Jake hands him with a bit of trepidation. It’s a bunch of multi-coloured ink and the worker squints to read the tiny print. “This could take a bit... ya alright to close fer the day.”

The two of them nod so quickly Jakes surprised their heads don’t fall off. 

Three hours later when Flynn arrives, the man freezes in the doorway taking in the scene around him. “Wha-Wha…what’s happening?” His messenger bag slips off his shoulder and onto the floor with a clunk.

Jake just sets a hand on his bosses shoulder and leads him to the table by the bookcase where Cassandra is setting up some snacks and drinks for the men working in the back of the store. 

“Hot water tank is getting fixed.” Cass replies with a wide smile.

Flynn lets his jaw drop, collapsing into a chair next to one of their tea pots. “H-how…does Jenkins know about this?”

Cassandra shakes her head, “We- I…” She replies. “I didn’t want to be the one to tell him.”

Jake motions over his shoulder to the once leaky tap and shakes his head. “Looks like Ray’s finally getting stuff done around here.” There’s a proud smile growing on his face, “Jenkins can’t be mad about that.”

The three of them sit, exchanging glances and basking in the amazement.

—

Jenkins isn’t mad about it when he walks in the door an hour after Flynn. 

He isn’t ecstatic about it, but he’s not mad. The older man just lets out a thoughtful ‘hmm’, fingers pressed to his lips in thought before marching into his kitchen to supervise the workers traipsing through his work area. 

It’s a better reaction then Cassandra and Flynn had been suspecting and they trade victorious grins with each other. Jenkins is very much their version of a grumpy cat, always complainingly loudly when a new person gets hired or someone leaves, not to mention when someone deigns to change the radio station without his explicit permission. 

Jake is the first to head home, having opened that day and Cassandra follows suit a few hours later as the sun starts to sink below the horizon. 

Flynn’s sitting on one of the few wooden stools by the espresso machine with a cup of coffee while Jenkins leans against the long oak bar next to him. One of the plumbers is cursing up a storm under the sink behind them while the other two clean up out back. “So…”

Ageless brown eyes flick up from the fine china tea cup in his hand and Jenkins arches a brow at the Library’s manager. “Yes Mr. Carsen?”

Just as Flynn opens his mouth to ask a question, the plumber under the sink lets out a triumphant yell and climbs to his feet. 

“That was the last thing on the list,” The worker sighs in relief, sounding like he can’t wait to get out of the place. 

“Thank you for everything.” Flynn states instead, sliding off his perch to shake the other mans hand. “I know it was a long day for you.”

“Just let us know if you get any problems.” With that the worker goes into the back area to collect his crew and Jenkins is the one to see the three of them to the door. 

There’s no rattle in the open concept ceiling anymore and the steady drip of water that used to plague the front area is now quiet. Flynn takes a moment to look around and while the team had done a good job leaving things looking just as they had been, the manager can’t help the way the cafe suddenly feels more solid around him.

“Mr. Carsen?”

“It’s nothing Jenkins, Don’t worry about it.”

—

Charlene looks up as Ezekiel limps into the kitchen well after noon the next day and the older woman shakes her head when the thief collapses into the chair across from her at the table. “Still hurting?”

Ezekiel glares at her and folds himself over so he can bury his face in his arms. “Like you have to ask.” He sighs into the tabletop. 

“Well that should teach you to repel 300 ft in high winds.” 

Theres a muffled sound like a curse coming from the young man and Charlene merely chuckles. Slowly she gets to her feet and makes her way over to the freezer, pulling out a well worn ice pack. “Here.” The older woman mutters wrapping the pack in a towel and dropping it onto the back of Ezekiel’s neck.

The thief hisses at the cold, hands shooting up to pull the ice off his neck and Ezekiel lifts his head enough to glare at his friend. “Sod off.”

Charlene laughs ruffling his hair, before taking her seat once more. She watches as Ezekiel carefully puts the ice pack on his knee, wincing at the sharp pain. “You’re lucky all you ended up with was a sprained knee. That security guard really had it in for you.”

Brown eyes narrow and Ezekiel frowns at her. “You and Lamia need to stop spending so much time together. Your idea of my ‘luck’ is getting completely bent.” At Charlene’s disbelieving snort the thief just buries his head back in his sweater covered arms and goes still.

Silence settles around the kitchen and the older woman shuts her book, pushing her glasses up her nose as she looks over the young thief sitting with her. “You want an update on the Foundation numbers?” She asks. “You’ve barely stopped to breathe in the past six months, let alone have time to look at your own charity numbers.”

A grunt is her only reply but Ezekiel doesn’t get up and leave so Charlene opens her notebook once more and reads off the accounts to him. She’s halfway through the quarterly updates for the ROI’s they have and all of the recent acquisitions when she notices warm brown eyes staring up at her. 

Charlene pauses and blinks down at the young man through her glasses. “What?”

Ezekiel smiles softly and rests his chin on the back of his hands so he can reach over to prod at the book in the woman hands. “I’m just super glad you’re doing all that paperwork and stuff now.”

The older woman shakes her head and crosses her arms as she leans back in her chair. “Well you weren’t doing too bad by yourself… but bookkeeping is defiantly not one of your talents.” Charlene mutters, hesitant to say anything nice about the chaotic way Jones had kept records. “You steal very valuable things Ezekiel, and you help a lot of people with them. The least I can do is make sure the Foundation you set up is running smoothly.”

The thief pouts then, “Why did you have to change the name anyways? Lamia and I liked it better the old way.”

Charlene’s flat look now is reminiscent of the face she made at him when Ezekiel first showed the older woman what he was doing with the funds he procured from his escapades. 

It was a mix between fond pride and annoyed disbelief. 

It’s his favourite expression, Ezekiel thinks. 

“ ‘Serving The Unlucky Mates and Peeps Yeah!,’ is not a good name for anything.” Charlene mutters. They’ve had this argument so many times it’s almost comical.

Ezekiel smirks widely giving her jazz hands because he knows it annoys her. “It’s S.T.U.M.P.Y.! ‘The Foundation’ just sounds boring.”

Wise blue eyes just blink unconvincingly at the Aussie before the older woman shakes her head with a sigh, getting up to head for the kettle. 

“So,” Charlene starts but when she doesn’t continue Ezekiel looks over his shoulder at her. She’s giving him an assessing look now and it makes the thief curl into himself a bit. That look is usually reserved for when he’s planning something big and stupid. 

He adjusts the ice pack on his knee before propping it up on Charlene empty chair. It still throbs when ever he thinks about it too much and silently he curses the well muscled security guard. Out of the corner of his eye he sees his friend still giving him that strange look and Ezekiel would really rather she stop.

“I haven’t done anything yet.” He snaps. (Yet being key word here…)

Charlene rolls her eyes and moves to grab two mugs out of the cupboard behind her. When she glances back at the young man she puts her hands on her hips and frowns. “Ray told us about The Library…”

Oh. Ezekiel grimaces then, “And?”

She doesn’t reply, just gives him a knowing look and Ezekiel fidgets in his seat. He knows that look. That look says I know what Ray did, I watched him do it. The look that says, yes, I know you’ve already done stuff to the place, and that you looked into each of the workers because thats the kind pot person you are. It says, yes, she knows exactly why that security guard got a drop on him even if Ezekiel will in no way ever admit that the Library Cafe had been a little too much on his mind yesterday, and that maybe, just maaayyybbeee….because of that, the guard had spotted him before Ezekiel could disappear.

“Look, I told him to take it back alright?” The thief huffs in exasperation and throws his hands up in the air in surrender. “He wouldn’t and then he ran away! I seriously have no idea what the arse is thinking!” Ezekiel mimes choking someone in front of him. He loves Ray, he really does, the man has the biggest heart to match his sunny disposition but sometimes Ezekiel thinks he’s just going to fly the man to Mexico and leave him there. He likes tacos enough he’d probably be happy there…

Adjusting her glasses Charlene pours the two teas, making her way back slowly to the kitchen table. 

She takes a moment, thinking back to their get together a few nights ago and remembers how she had had to haul a complete noodle of a drunken thief to his bed just after midnight. She had thrown a blanket over Ezekiel as he curled up on his sheets in the kind of sleep one can only get with the proper mixture of exhaustion and alcohol. 

…-…

Charlene sighs down at the passed out young thief before making her way back into the living room and her drink; she frowns however when she sees Rays head bent over the coffee table, scribbling on a piece of paper with Judson leaning over and laughing with him. 

Lamia is splayed out on the large comfy chair, completely ignoring them while still managing to pay attention as she takes a drink right from the bottle of rum. 

Charlene glares at all of them as she comes to stand behind Ray. “What are you two doing?”

Ray glances up at her innocently with a wide smile, “Well, you know how Ezekiel has been working so much as of late?” Charlene nods at this and the ginger man continues. “Well I have thought of a way to get him to focus on new things and to take his mind off of stealing for a bit.” 

The assassin on the Lazy-Boy looks over at Ray’s words, curious now as as rolls off the chair and onto her feet, sliding over to the small group around the table. “And you think this is the answer to how overworked he makes himself? By giving himself something else to look after?”

The man sitting on the floor shakes his head, “I have owned this cafe for years, The Library cafe is exactly what Ezekiel needs.” Ray states, “The people there are wonderful and damaged and exactly the type of people Jones seems to attract in volume. This will be good for him, to focus on something other than work.” The other three exchange bemused looks, but none of them can disagree with Ray’s statement. 

Judson shrugs, looking up at Charlene with a slightly drunk smile. “It’s worth a shot.” 

Charlene to her credit, merely holds out her hand to Ray and makes a pass-it-over motion. “Give it to me, my writing will make it official looking.” 

With a triumphant sound Ray shoves his pen and paper towards the older woman as she kneels down by the coffee table. The excitement is pouring off of Ray and the glassy look in his eye can not be fully chalked up to the gin Lamia had been feeding him. “This is a fantastic idea.”

Lamia laughs and slides gracefully to the floor next to Charlene. “Give it here when you’re done, I can do Jones’ drunk signature.” The others give her a strange look but don’t ask. The swordsman just smiles at them as Judson holds out his fist to her. She gives it a quick bump and gives him a wink. “Make sure you tell him he’s won it, otherwise he won’t accept it…”

 

…-…

Charlene shakes the other night clear from her head as she sits down once more, keeping herself to the edge of the seat so Ezekiel doesn’t have to move his leg before finally tuning herself back into whatever the boy was saying.

“-AND THEY DON’T EVEN HAVE A TWITTER!” Ezekiel huffs in annoyance. It’s hard to stalk a place digitally when they don’t have social media. He wonders if he should try to hack into their mainframe… Is that too far? He wonders if they even have a mainframe… “It’s like they’re living in the Stone Age!”

“LOOK, would you just stop being so cantankerous about the whole thing and just go check on them!” Charlene snaps. She’s had enough of it already and is giving Ezekiel a look that tells him so. “I’ve never heard you talk so much about something since you robbed that villa on lake Como, and as long as you’re back for next week’s charity auction it’s not going to kill you to go see the place.”

Ezekiel just glares back at Charlene and leans back in his chair. “I have a life of non-involvement for a reason Charlene, remember? I’m like Switzerland. I can’t just randomly pop into the damn place and ask how stuff is going.” 

Charlene just laughs in his face as Judson strolls into the kitchen in his red housecoat. He’s holding newspaper open in his hand and the older man looks up just as Ezekiel holds his ice pack up in the air threateningly. 

“I will throw this at you!” Ezekiel growls when Charlene doesn’t stop laughing.

“Now, now, children, play nice.” Judson chuckles, rolling up his paper and pointing it at the two by the table.

Charlene shakes her head and waves a hand at her other half. “Ezekiel’s going to Portland for a week.” She informs Judson with an amused smile.

“WHAT? No I’m not!” 

Judson completely ignores him and starts towards the coffee pot. He’s the only one who can ever get the thing to work and Ezekiel and Charlene glare as it gurgles to life at the press of a button. “Oh, I’ll get you a plane ticket for Thursday then…bring me back something nice.”

“BLOODY HELL… JUDOSN, NO….CHARLENE!”


End file.
